The Desert Minx - The Final Instalment - My angel's fear to tread

A more restful night than usual, my burden lightened by not having to cut the holiday and miss the highlight of the trip. As we journey without me balancing on hands or kneeling in footwell I am contemplating Zion National Park's Angel's Landing, well as far as Walter's Wiggles anyway...I never planned to go to the top.

Yet another set of scene changes

Zion is coming into view

And here we are

and guess what? It's all booked for the first night and P wants me to have another night in a bed, Riona isn't questioning it either :-). We pass this bijou opportunity over...

Instead, we spend the night in the same hotel as the participants in the Pensioners Olympics. Unfortunately we had to sign a confidentiality clause with Saga Holidays not to reveal the results of the bedroom gymnastics, suffice to say we heard a lot of this

Next day we have to drive through this rubbish scenery AGAIN...

Shortly we will be going into that hole which appears to have no road to it...

And this is what we see on the other side

The rocks look like giant Walnut whips.

It looks like the earth went through really painful processes to get to this state

All topped off with a  double rainbow on our way back for a second night of fun and frolics with the ladies speed knitting team of Kentucky.

Day 2 we are mostly walking (limping still) behind waterfalls

Then I am not allowed to carry on as Riona and P proceed to the erm.... Emerald Pool..

But the height of the walls is impressive...

I resort to bugs on the valley floor

Today we visit another waterfall with a more impressive backdrop

Tomorrow P and Riona are going up something like this

I am not. I content myself with accompanying them into deep canyons like this

I think it is this they are actually going up

or possibly that!

To celebrate, we are finally camping again

And P and Riona talk themselves in, then out and then back in again to climbing Angel's Landing. I merrily wave them off on the bus and mooch off to eat cake, drink coffee and contemplate sensible shoe shops.

Meantime my intrepid travellers do this, Walter's Wiggles

First proof that Riona was there

And this is the next bit.... 

 I think this is panic.....note the chain......

And the drop

Onward and upward

That stage done

The next stage...gulp

Mulling it over togevver

They stopped at Scout's Landing for more photo shots

and to compare notes with an Australian couple. This together with the fact that they had met the ever present boy scout troop of America and a Korean lady who thought that the best way to tackle a three foot wide sloping path with 1,000 foot drops either side was to re-enact the opening hours of the January Sales at Harrods, the focus being the metal chain that everyone is meant to keep hold of! They determined it was time to return Hop Along who is still so proud of them and knows that even if she had been fighting fit...would never ever have done what they did and she would like to leave the last word of the entire trip to them in video...but the blog capacity is too small. So here are their last words in a picture

The Desert Minx Part 6 - Colgate Man

The night passes and P is discussing trip abandonment and I am ignoring him. 3 cushions and lots of pills and we set off for Bryce Canyon...I end up kneeling on the floor in the footwell as it is a comfortable place to be...P is now responsible for driving and both P and R for photography ... I just keep hearing wow. Here are their efforts

Hang on a minute we've only gone round the corner of a mountain

And then another

And

and just as you settle down to the landscape

The storms they are a coming

Here we are

But they have closed it because that storm was snow and fog and ice…….


We head for lunch and it is gloomy. There is one place along the way, Hatch and everything in it is owned by the same family. We decide to stay here for the night too but can't book into the hotel because the entire family are having a lunchtime nap.


So lunch ...I have not got out of the car since we left Fruita, and I actually can't seem to summon the energy to brave that initial spike up and down my right hand side so P insists on carrying me to the doors of the restaurant where I insist he puts me down and he and Riona drag me, while I drag my right leg. But I can't sit at the table and have to lay down on the bench ...the waitress gives me a strange look as I lay on the seat and pop up to order soup...that's rich for a place where everyone has the same name and looks the same.

Come 2 pm we can book a room and ask for downstairs, so they give us a wheelchair access door...but we can't go in it as they haven't finished cleaning so I sit in the car while P and Riona do the laundry...emerging from time to get instructions about socks...

Once inside I lay on the bed and Riona revels in being able to have a bath. I plan the military manouevre for my immersion which is basically on all fours again and performing the equivalent of a high jumper's roll over the edge of the bath...it is the only time I have been pleased that the US seems to favour the low slung 18 inch "deep" bath.


P and Riona go out on the town...to the pizza place to pick up and we settle down to watch truly crappy fuzzy TV.

A new day and P takes the executive decision to divert to a hospital, the nearest being Cedar City, it is brilliant sunshine then we drive through......... freezing rain and snow and a 20 degree drop in temperature. The blurring is the windscreen not my pills.

We hit a traffic jam in a canyon…the only road through…and which is brown

and high, then orange

And then Cedar City and it’s beautiful cathedral style vaulted ceiling looking like it was just erected yesterday. I am wheeled in...and discover we have not got our medical insurance with us but the bountiful hospital swipes our credit card anyway. We Yorkshire folk gulp... and allow ourselves to be ushered into a private room and the TV is turned on for us, I have my blood pressure taken and we settle down to wait for the main man



There is a blinding flash of light as Colgate Man walks in with his Ring of Confidence smile and Barry White voice. Being unworthy he manages to diagnose what is wrong without even touching me and finishes with:


- hey will you promise me you will see an orthopaedic surgeon in Fort Worth, is that a deal Shaaaaarman?




He has prescribed anti inflammatories and a shot of morphine to settle the agony.


Nurse Kato returns ..I didn't know learning a karate chop was part of administering a hypodermic of morphine and I am sure I don't have an a..e made of elephant hide to warrant it either.


But 2 minutes later

An hour later I walk carefully out of the place on two feet not sure whether my weightlessness is to do with a significantly lighter wallet


We decide to stay in Cedar City..it is a Monday or  "lock your doors" day for the restaurant business.


Back in another hotel I take more pills, 4 hours after the last lot. Thank God I am still relatively pain free to get to the bathroom and not projectile vomit from the bed...jeez how strong are these pills. Night!

The Desert Minx Part 5 – Mooning for the mature lady

I would like to say that my back problem developed in a shoot out with Jekyll and Hyde, I mean Bonnie and Clyde, but as you know if you have devoted yourself to the last four chapters, I have been hinting at it. Some of you will remember the Top and Bottom Twang of 2005, followed by the Great Sneeze of 2008, well almost another three year gap and we come to the Slow Collapse of 2010.
There is a slight smart on getting up from anything, especially anything as low down as the ground, accompanied with a slight dragging of the right leg, sort of Quasi a la Modo, which then rights itself after 10 minutes' walk until mounting of stairs is required.

By the time we get to Canyonlands and, my pretend it doesn’t exist climb on the picnic bench seat, the following morning I am using the outside of the tent to pull myself to a standing position and it is taking me a good 5 minutes to do the very unpc “I’s a coming boss” walk to the toilet/shower block which is 50 yards away. Throw in the long round trip to the Arches and when we set off for Capitol Reef, well I am in something of a mess which I seek to control with drugs - 2 Tylenol every fffffthree hours and 2 ibuprofen. The journey to Capitol Reef is very, very long, but I distract myself with more colourful lunar landscapes and shades of Palo Duro Canyon and the Big Bend trip

Intermingled with someone trying to offend the dominant religious group

Not to mention the unexpurgated version of Little House on the Prairie

There was nothing for miles but dust and hills

And ghost trucks seemingly driving themselves

Then a brief change of formation

It was like God, if you believe he is the supreme creator of all, was having a real artistic dilemma or else dropped his Hobby Lobby art kit in the middle of a Wizard of Oz tornado

 

It was like we were seeing almost all of our trips in tableau form.


Chop

change

Chop

 

Approaching lunar base 8

And the road goes ever on…it is 4 pm and we have been driving since 8.30 am

Hurrah

And oh look different rock formations again…

In 7 and half hours we have been through about 3 towns and seen probably 50 cars at most …gained a casualty

and again in true West West Texas style the camp is full 

 Our only option is back country camping for which the parking is another 9 miles, walk at least half a mile with full kit, food and water, before setting up camp, so we are not visible from the road, presumably so as not to spoil the view for the lazy buggers munching on popcorn and slurping Gatorade to re-instate all the calories expended steering their V6 engines through the landscape.....and ”leave no trace aka bury your pooh!”. Can you tell I am in pain….

By the time I have managed to get down from our little explorer I find P has said ok and paid up the dosh for the privilege. To be fair we have always wanted to do this and found ourselves in a similar position at Pedernales Falls it just isn’t the right time….


Off we go, by now and on this erm….dirt track I have to prop myself on my hands to control being chucked about in the front seat, the pain has got excruciating and I can’t take any more pills until food. P is driving like a maniac otherwise we have the additional problem of setting up camp in the dark.


So here we are wearing brave smiles….note the right leg

I decide it is time to take myself off to die in some remote, hidden place like a cat

We find a site next to the river but only a quarter of a mile from the road…Rio and I are short and P can just stoop to reduce our visibility. We are at the mouth of a canyon surrounded by

We decide to cook in the car park and then walk back down

Ham and mushroom carbonara

And lots of wine….and drugs


Time for bed, I’ll just pop the ¼ mile to the bedroom, with bed…and emergency flask of tea

Riona’s ickle tent complete with additional rock…because the wind is up

God I am so brave, P is so happy. At this point if you are:

a) easily offended disposition

or

b) raised by Miss Prissy's school of decorum and etiquette




I suggest you scroll qucikly until you find the words "It is called Fruita"

  Between that shot and this  (one of the most beautiful renditions I have heard and seen by the way)

I have

• cried a lot,
• needed a wee…

but it has got to the stage where I can’t get to my feet without assistance, the tent cannot take the amount of pressure needed double as a surgical hoist.  So without assistance I am stuck on all fours and I can’t wake and won't wake P as he has had to cope with me blubbering already and he will make us go home and I don't want to be the one to ruin the trip. So what to do...................................................

........And it is only halfway through my “manouevre” which involves balancing on one hand whilst executing a variation of the move that your mother used to have to do at the seaside when you were trying to put still sandy feet through your knicker leg and didn't want to be wriggling all the way home......that I realize I could literally come face to face with a bob cat or mountain lion ….I leave you to imagine my predicament suffice to say there were no animals carnivorous or otherwise needing counselling.


So in the morning light I plan my crawl back to the car which involves circumventing a damp patch.... better set off now….if we are to get back to the main campsite to see if there are any spaces in "civilisation". P won’t hear of me crawling and so we start the raising of the Titanic which is a two stage maneouvre…stage one is hoisting me halfway to my feet in a front Heimlich thingy, 2 minutes to get rid of the first lightning strike pain and prepare myself for stage 2 which is to get my feet flat and check I can stand on at least the left one. This is 2008 without the ambulance men or oxygen. I leave them to break camp while I limp back.





It is called Fruita (note the population), where families set up orchards to grow all kinds of fruit trees, then the community dwindled and was handed over to the National Park . You too can pick the fruit and the first apple is free. The beauty of it is that the wildlife have caught on and even though the tradition is not to give them fruit, it is the one place it has been accepted that it is difficult to separate man and beast so you get this….

This is Riona by the way not me…

Did I tell you I have only ever seen Bambi upto but not including the scene where Texas Pete steps in ???

The homestead is still there and they sell fresh fruit pies too. A recent apple chudders grave

Rio, the original bag lady, used to pick up everything as a kid and deposit it in the bag and clearly has not got out of the habit

When aged 2 the washed creamy woodlouse that fell out on the ironing board from her dungaree pocket was bad enough but this ...a baby version of what clearly had eaten most of the surrounding human population

even by her standards

And so to supper and preparations for bed.  It has got to the stage now where it is difficult to walk without pain. I decide to set off for the toilet block 30 yards away.  I can't open the door properly and so a kind lady helps. Inside I try to change and wash. I need the loo but feel woozy and the toilet cubicle gets smaller and then there is a big crash. I lay there and then a bunny in the headlights P pops his head cautiously around the door, to see mine sticking out the bottom of the cubicle. Last time that happend was aged 5 when my friend Ann Watson and I got trapped in Gillshill school toilets (outside) at playtime and the whistle blew and everyone else marched in and we thought we would starve to death and so I had to wriggle out underneath to get help.  

Poor P the risk of being caught in the ladies with a erm "lady" with foundation wear not properly secured...Having got me to my feet he runs for the hills (well re-inforcements Riona) to come and assist which fortunately due to my fierce independence means making sure I don't pass out again whilst brushing my teeth and re-washing my hands and face after their contact with the toilet floor...eeeewwww. P is recalled to half carry me back to the tent and pills.

What will tomorrow bring?